I love to watch movies by Spike Jonze because he always tells interesting stories with even more interesting characters. But what I may love more is the look of his films. Jacob T. Swinney edited together this video to show the aesthetics of whimsy and you’ll see interesting camera angles, lens flares and more.
Despite the fact that the look of his films often takes a back seat to bizarre stories and quirky characters, Spike Jonze has crafted a uniquely whimsical visual style over the course of his four feature films. Making the most out of simple elements such as lens flares, floating camera movement, centered framing, and wide-angle close-ups, Jonze creates an atmosphere that appears to be lifted straight from the pages of a fairytale storybook. His camera is fascinated with the mundane; intently exploring fabrics and materials, finding beauty and significance in the obscure and unnoticed. Dust particles floating in a beam of sunlight become hypnotic. The delicate plaster of marionettes feels as lifelike as human flesh. The matted fur wrapped around a child strikes us with an overwhelming sense of marvel and nostalgia.